V.

ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
HIS OWN GHOST STORY

by Amelia B. Edwards

The circumstances I am about to relate to you have truth to
recommend them. They happened to myself, and my recollection
of them is as vivid as if they had taken place only yesterday.
Twenty years, however, have gone by since that night. During
those twenty years I have told the story to but one other person.
I tell it now with a reluctance which I find it difficult to
overcome.
All I entreat, meanwhile, is that you will abstain from
forcing your own conclusions upon me. I want nothing explained
away. I desire no arguments. My mind on this subject is quite
made up, and, having the testimony of my own senses to rely
upon, I prefer to abide by it.

Well! It was just twenty years ago, and within a day or two
of the end of the grouse season. I had been out all day with my
gun, and had had no sport to speak of. The wind was due east;
the month, December; the place, a bleak wide moor in the far
north of England. And I had lost my way. It was not a pleasant
place in which to lose one's way, with the first feathery flakes
of
a coming snowstorm just fluttering down upon the heather, and
the leaden evening closing in all around. I shaded my eyes with
my hand, and staled anxiously into the gathering darkness, where
the purple moorland melted into a range of low hills, some ten or
twelve miles distant. Not the faintest smoke-wreath, not the
tiniest
cultivated patch, or fence, or sheep-track, met my eyes in any
direction. There was nothing for it but to walk on, and take my
chance of finding what shelter I could, by the way. So I
shouldered
my gun again, and pushed wearily forward; for I had been on
foot since an hour after daybreak, and had eaten nothing since
breakfast.

Meanwhile, the snow began to come down with ominous steadiness,
and the wind fell. After this, the cold became more intense,
and the night came rapidly up. As for me, my prospects darkened
with the darkening sky, and my heart grew heavy as I thought
how my young wife was already watching for me through the
window of our little inn parlour, and thought of all the
suffering
in store for her throughout this weary night. We had been married
four months, and, having spent our autumn in the Highlands,
were now lodging in a remote little village situated just on the
verge of the great English moorlands. We were very much in love,
and, of course, very happy. This morning, when we parted, she
had implored me to return before dusk, and I had promised her
that I would. What would I not have given to have kept my word!

Even now, weary as I was, I felt that with a supper, an hour's
rest, and a guide, I might still get back to her before midnight,
if only guide and shelter could be found.

And all this time, the snow fell and the night thickened. I
stopped and shouted every now and then, but my shouts seemed
only to make the silence deeper. Then a vague sense of uneasiness
came upon me, and I began to remember stories of travellers who
had walked on and on in the falling snow until, wearied out, they
were fain to lie down and sleep their lives away. Would it be
possible, I asked myself, to keep on thus through all the long
dark
night? Would there not come a time when my limbs must fail,
and my resolution give way? When I, too, must sleep the sleep
of death. Death! I shuddered. How hard to die just now, when
life lay all so bright before me! How hard for my darling, whose
whole loving heart but that thought was not to be borne! To
banish it, I shouted again, louder and longer, and then listened
eagerly. Was my shout answered, or did I only fancy that I heard
a far-off cry? I halloed again, and again the echo followed. Then
a wavering speck of light came suddenly out of the dark,
shifting,
disappearing, growing momentarily nearer and brighter. Running
towards it at full speed, I found myself, to my great joy, face
to
face with an old man and a lantern.

"Thank God!" was the exclamation that burst
involuntarily
from my lips.

Blinking and frowning, he lifted his lantern and peered into
my face.

"What for?" growled he, sulkily.

"Well--for you. I began to fear I should be lost in the
snow."

"Eh, then, folks do get cast away hereabouts fra' time to
time,
an' what's to hinder you from bein' cast away likewise, if the
Lord's so minded?"

"If the Lord is so minded that you and I shall be lost
together,
friend, we must submit," I replied; "but I don't mean
to be lost
without you. How far am I now from Dwolding?"

"A gude twenty mile, more or less."

"And the nearest village?"

"The nearest village is Wyke, an' that's twelve mile t'other
side."

"Where do you live, then?"

"Out yonder," said he, with a vague jerk of the
lantern.

"You're going home, I presume?"

"Maybe I am."

"Then I'm going with you."

The old man shook his head, and rubbed his nose reflectively
with the handle of the lantern.

"It ain't o' no use," growled he. "He 'ont let you
in--not
he."

"We'll see about that," I replied, briskly. "Who
is He?"

"The master."

"Who is the master?"

"That's nowt to you," was the unceremonious reply.

"Well, well; you lead the way, and I'll engage that the
master
shall give me shelter and a supper to-night."

"Eh, you can try him!" muttered my reluctant guide;
and,
still shaking his head, he hobbled, gnome-like, away through the
falling snow. A large mass loomed up presently out of the
darkness,
and a huge dog rushed out, barking furiously.

"Is this the house?" I asked.

"Ay, it's the house. Down, Bey!" And he fumbled in his
pocket for the key.

I drew up close behind him, prepared to lose no chance of
entrance,
and saw in the little circle of light shed by the lantern that
the door was heavily studded with iron nails, like the door of a
prison. In another minute he had turned the key and I had pushed
past him into the house.

Once inside, I looked round with curiosity, and found myself
in a great raftered hall, which served, apparently, a variety of
uses. One end was piled to the roof with corn, like a barn. The
other was stored with flour-sacks, agricultural implements,
casks,
and all kinds of miscellaneous lumber; while from the beams
overhead
hung rows of hams, flitches, and bunches of dried herbs for
winter use. In the centre of the floor stood some huge object
gauntly dressed in a dingy wrapping-cloth, and reaching half way
to the rafters. Lifting a corner of this cloth, I saw, to my
surprise,
a telescope of very considerable size, mounted on a rude movable
platform, with four small wheels. The tube was made of painted
wood, bound round with bands of metal rudely fashioned; the
speculum, so far as I could estimate its size in the dim light,
measured at least fifteen inches in diameter. While I was yet
examining the instrument, and asking myself whether it was not
the work
of some self-taught optician, a bell rang sharply.

"That's for you," said my guide, with a malicious grin.
"Yonder's
his room."

He pointed to a low black door at the opposite side of the hall.
I crossed over, rapped somewhat loudly, and went in, without
waiting for an invitation. A huge, white-haired old man rose from
a table covered with books and papers, and confronted me sternly.

"Who are you?" said he. "How came you here? What
do
you want?"

"James Murray, barrister-at-law. On foot across the moor.
Meat, drink, and sleep."

He bent his bushy brows into a portentous frown.

"Mine is not a house of entertainment," he said,
haughtily.
"Jacob, how dared you admit this stranger?"

"I didn't admit him," grumbled the old man. "He
followed
me over the muir, and shouldered his way in before me. I'm no
match for six foot two."

"And pray, sir, by what right have you forced an entrance
into
my house?"

"The same by which I should have clung to your boat, if
I were drowning. The right of self-preservation."

"Self-preservation?"

"There's an inch of snow on the ground already," I
replied,
briefly; "and it would be deep enough to cover my body
before
daybreak."

He strode to the window, pulled aside a heavy black curtain,
and looked out.

"It is true," he said. "You can stay, if you
choose, till
morning.
Jacob, serve the supper."

With this he waved me to a seat, resumed his own, and became
at once absorbed in the studies from which I had disturbed him.

I placed my gun in a corner, drew a chair to the hearth, and
examined my quarters at leisure. Smaller and less incongruous
in its arrangements than the hall, this room contained,
nevertheless,
much to awaken my curiosity. The floor was carpetless. The
whitewashed walls were in parts scrawled over with strange
diagrams,
and in others covered with shelves crowded with philosophical
instruments, the uses of many of which were unknown
to me. On one side of the fireplace, stood a bookcase filled with
dingy folios; on the other, a small organ, fantastically
decorated
with painted carvings of mediæval saints and devils.
Through the
half-opened door of a cupboard at the further end of the room,
I saw a long array of geological specimens, surgical
preparations,
crucibles, retorts, and jars of chemicals; while on the
mantelshelf
beside me, amid a number of small objects, stood a model of the
solar system, a small galvanic battery, and a microscope. Every
chair had its burden. Every corner was heaped high with books.
The very floor was littered over with maps, casts, papers,
tracings,
and learned lumber of all conceivable kinds.

I stared about me with an amazement increased by every fresh
object upon which my eyes chanced to rest. So strange a room
I had never seen; yet seemed it stranger still, to find such a
room
in a lone farmhouse amid those wild and solitary moors! Over
and over again, I looked from my host to his surroundings, and
from his surroundings back to my host, asking myself who and
what he could be? His head was singularly fine; but it was more
the head of a poet than of a philosopher. Broad in the temples,
prominent over the eyes, and clothed with a rough profusion of
perfectly white hair, it had all the ideality and much of the
ruggedness that characterises the head of Louis von Beethoven.
There
were the same deep lines about the mouth, and the same stern
furrows in the brow. There was the same concentration of
expression. While I was yet observing him, the door opened, and
Jacob brought in the supper. His master then closed his book,
rose, and with more courtesy of manner than he had yet shown,
invited me to the table.

A dish of ham and eggs, a loaf of brown bread, and a bottle of
admirable sherry, were placed before me.

"I have but the homeliest farmhouse fare to offer you,
sir,"
said my entertainer. "Your appetite, I trust, will make up
for
the deficiencies of our larder."

I had already fallen upon the viands, and now protested, with
the enthusiasm of a starving sportsman, that I had never eaten
anything so delicious.

He bowed stiffly, and sat down to his own supper, which
consisted,
primitively, of a jug of milk and a basin of porridge. We
ate in silence, and, when we had done, Jacob removed the tray.
I then drew my chair back to the fireside. My host, somewhat to
my surprise, did the same, and turning abruptly towards me, said:

"Sir, I have lived here in strict retirement for
three-and-twenty
years. During that time, I have not seen as many strange faces,
and I have not read a single newspaper. You are the first
stranger
who has crossed my threshold for more than four years. Will you
favour me with a few words of information respecting that outer
world from which I have parted company so long?"

"Pray interrogate me," I replied. "I am heartily
at your
service."

He bent his head in acknowledgment; leaned forward, with
his elbows resting on his knees and his chin supported in the
palms
of his hands; stared fixedly into the fire; and proceeded to
question
me.

His inquiries related chiefly to scientific matters, with the
later
progress of which, as applied to the practical purposes of life,
he
was almost wholly unacquainted. No student of science myself,
I replied as well as my slight information permitted; but the
task
was far from easy, and I was much relieved when, passing from
interrogation to discussion, he began pouring forth his own
conclusions upon the facts which I had been attempting to place
before him. He talked, and I listened spellbound. He talked till
I believe he almost forgot my presence, and only thought aloud.
I had never heard anything like it then; I have never heard
anything
like it since. Familiar with all systems of all philosophies,
subtle in analysis, bold in generalisation, he poured forth his
thoughts in an uninterrupted stream, and, still leaning forward
in the same moody attitude with his eyes fixed upon the fire,
wandered from topic to topic, from speculation to speculation,
like an inspired dreamer. From practical science to mental
philosophy; from electricity in the wire to electricity in the
nerve;
from Watts to Mesmer, from Mesmer to Reichenbach, from
Reichenbach to Swedenborg, Spinoza, Condillac, Descartes,
Berkeley, Aristotle, Plato, and the Magi and mystics of the East,
were transitions which, however bewildering in their variety and
scope, seemed easy and harmonious upon his lips as sequences in
music. By-and-by--I forget now by what link of conjecture or
illustration--he passed on to that field which lies beyond the
boundary line of even conjectural philosophy, and reaches no man
knows whither. He spoke of the soul and its aspirations; of the
spirit and its powers; of second sight; of prophecy; of those
phenomena which, under the names of ghosts, spectres, and
supernatural
appearances, have been denied by the sceptics and attested
by the credulous, of all ages.

"The world," he said, "grows hourly more and more
sceptical
of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius; and our men of
science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable all that
resists experiment. They reject as false all that cannot be
brought
to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting-room. Against
what
superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as
against the belief in apparitions? And yet what superstition has
maintained its hold upon the minds of men so long and so firmly?
Show me any fact in physics, in history, in archæology,
which is
supported by testimony so wide and so various. Attested by all
races of men, in all ages, and in all climates, by the soberest
sages
of antiquity, by the rudest savage of to-day, by the Christian,
the
Pagan, the Pantheist, the Materialist, this phenomenon is treated
as a nursery tale by the philosophers of our century.
Circumstantial
evidence weighs with them as a feather in the balance. The
comparison
of causes with effects, however valuable in physical science, is
put aside as worthless and unreliable. The evidence of competent
witnesses, however conclusive in a court of justice, counts for
nothing. He who pauses before he pronounces, is condemned as
a trifler. He who believes, is a dreamer or a fool."

He spoke with bitterness, and, having said thus, relapsed for
some minutes into silence. Presently he raised his head from his
hands, and added, with an altered voice and manner,
"I, sir, paused, investigated, believed, and was not ashamed
to state my convictions to the world. I, too, was branded as a
visionary, held up to ridicule by my contemporaries, and hooted
from that field of science in which I had laboured with honour
during all the best years of my life. These things happened just
three-and-twenty years ago. Since then, I have lived as you see
me living now, and the world has forgotten me, as I have forgot-
ten the world. You have my history."

"It is a very sad one," I murmured, scarcely knowing
what
to answer.

"It is a very common one," he replied. "I have
only suffered
for the truth, as many a better and wiser man has suffered before
me."

He rose, as if desirous of ending the conversation, and went
over to the window.

"It has ceased snowing," he observed, as he dropped the
curtain,
and came back to the fireside.

"Ceased!" I exclaimed, starting eagerly to my feet.
"Oh, if
it were only possible--but no! it is hopeless. Even if I could
find
my way across the moor, I could not walk twenty miles
to-night."

"Of my wife," I replied, impatiently. "Of my young
wife,
who does not know that I have lost my way, and who is at this
moment breaking her heart with suspense and terror."

"Where is she?"

"At Dwolding, twenty miles away."

"At Dwolding," he echoed, thoughtfully. "Yes, the
distance,
it is true, is twenty miles; but--are you so very anxious to save
the next six or eight hours?"

"So very, very anxious, that I would give ten guineas at
this
moment for a guide and a horse."

"Your wish can be gratified at a less costly rate,"
said he,
smiling. "The night mail from the north, which changes
horses
at Dwolding, passes within five miles of this spot, and will be
due
at a certain cross-road in about an hour and a quarter. If Jacob
were to go with you across the moor, and put you into the old
coach-road, you could find your way, I suppose, to where it joins
the new one?"

"Easily--gladly."

He smiled again, rang the bell, gave the old servant his
directions,
and, taking a bottle of whisky and a wineglass from the cupboard
in which he kept his chemicals, said:

"The snow lies deep, and it will be difficult walking
to-night
on the moor. A glass of usquebaugh before you start?"

I would have declined the spirit, but he pressed it on me, and
I drank it. It went down my throat like liquid flame, and almost
took my breath away.

"It is strong," he said; "but it will help to keep
out the cold.
And now you have no moments to spare. Good night!"

I thanked him for his hospitality, and would have shaken hands,
but that he had turned away before I could finish my sentence.
In another minute I had traversed the hall, Jacob had locked the
outer door behind me, and we were out on the wide white moor.

Although the wind had fallen, it was still bitterly cold. Not a
star glimmered in the black vault overhead. Not a sound, save
the rapid crunching of the snow beneath our feet, disturbed the
heavy stillness of the night. Jacob, not too well pleased with
his
mission, shambled on before in sullen silence, his lantern in his
hand, and his shadow at his feet. I followed, with my gun over
my shoulder, as little inclined for conversation as himself. My
thoughts were full of my late host. His voice yet rang in my
ears.
His eloquence yet held my imagination captive. I remember to
this day, with surprise, how my over-excited brain retained whole
sentences and parts of sentences, troops of brilliant images, and
fragments of splendid reasoning, in the very words in which he
had uttered them. Musing thus over what I had heard, and striving
to recall a lost link here and there, I strode on at the heels of
my guide, absorbed and unobservant. Presently--at the end, as
it seemed to me, of only a few minutes--he came to a sudden halt,
and said:

"Yon's your road. Keep the stone fence to your right hand,
and you can't fail of the way."

"This, then, is the old coach-road?"

"Ay, 'tis the old coach-road."

"And how far do I go, before I reach the cross-roads?"

"Nigh upon three mile."

I pulled out my purse, and he became more communicative.

"The road's a fair road enough," said he, "for
foot passengers;
but 'twas over steep and narrow for the northern traffic. You'll
mind where the parapet's broken away, close again the sign-post.
It's never been mended since the accident."

"What accident?"

"Eh, the night mail pitched right over into the valley
below--a
gude fifty feet an' more--just at the worst bit o' road in the
whole county."

"Horrible! Were many lives lost?"

"All. Four were found dead, and t'other two died next
morning."

"How long is it since this happened?"

"Just nine year."

"Near the sign-post, you say? I will bear it in mind. Good
night."

"Gude night, sir, and thankee." Jacob pocketed his
half-crown,
made a faint pretence of touching his hat, and trudged back by
the way he had come.

I watched the light of his lantern till it quite disappeared, and
then turned to pursue my way alone. This was no longer matter
of the slightest difficulty, for, despite the dead darkness
overhead,
the line of stone fence showed distinctly enough against the pale
gleam of the snow. How silent it seemed now, with only my
footsteps
to listen to; how silent and how solitary! A strange disagreeable
sense of loneliness stole over me. I walked faster. I hummed
a fragment of a tune. I cast up enormous sums in my head, and
accumulated them at compound interest. I did my best, in short,
to forget the startling speculations to which I had but just been
listening, and, to some extent, I succeeded.

Meanwhile the night air seemed to become colder and colder,
and though I walked fast I found it impossible to keep myself
warm. My feet were like ice. I lost sensation in my hands, and
grasped my gun mechanically. I even breathed with difficulty,
as though, instead of traversing a quiet north country highway,
I were scaling the uppermost heights of some gigantic Alp. This
last symptom became presently so distressing, that I was forced
to stop for a few minutes, and lean against the stone fence. As
I did so, I chanced to look back up the road, and there, to my
infinite relief, I saw a distant point of light, like the gleam
of an
approaching lantern. I at first concluded that Jacob had retraced
his steps and followed me; but even as the conjecture presented
itself, a second light flashed into sight--a light evidently
parallel
with the first, and approaching at the same rate of motion. It
needed no second thought to show me that these must be the
carriage-lamps of some private vehicle, though it seemed strange
that any private vehicle should take a road professedly disused
and dangerous

There could be no doubt, however, of the fact, for the lamps
grew larger and brighter every moment, and I even fancied I
could already see the dark outline of the carriage between them.
It was coming up very fast, and quite noiselessly, the snow being
nearly a foot deep under the wheels.

And now the body of the vehicle became distinctly visible behind
the lamps. It looked strangely lofty. A sudden suspicion
flashed upon me. Was it possible that I had passed the
cross-roads
in the dark without observing the sign-post, and could this be
the
very coach which I had come to meet?

No need to ask myself that question a second time, for here it
came round the bend of the road, guard and driver, one outside
passenger, and four steaming greys, all wrapped in a soft haze of
light, through which the lamps blazed out, like a pair of fiery
meteors.

I jumped forward, waved my hat, and shouted. The mail came
down at full speed, and passed me. For a moment I feared that
I had not been seen or heard, but it was only for a moment. The
coachman pulled up; the guard, muffled to the eyes in capes and
comforters, and apparently sound asleep in the rumble, neither
answered my hail nor made the slightest effort to dismount; the
outside passenger did not even turn his head. I opened the door
for myself, and looked in. There were but three travellers
inside,
so I stepped in, shut the door, slipped into the vacant corner,
and
congratulated myself on my good fortune.

The atmosphere of the coach seemed, if possible, colder than
that of the outer air, and was pervaded by a singularly damp and
disagreeable smell. I looked round at my fellow-passengers. They
were all three, men, and all silent. They did not seem to be
asleep,
but each leaned back in his corner of the vehicle, as if absorbed
in
his own reflections. I attempted to open a conversation.

Although the corner in which he sat was so dim that I could
distinguish none of his features very clearly, I saw that his
eyes
were still turned full upon me. And yet he answered never a word.

At any other time I should have felt, and perhaps expressed,
some annoyance, but at the moment I felt too ill to do either.
The
icy coldness of the night air had struck a chill to my very
marrow,
and the strange smell inside the coach was affecting me with an
intolerable nausea. I shivered from head to foot, and, turning to
my left-hand neighbour, asked if he had any objection to an open
window?

He neither spoke nor stirred.

I repeated the question somewhat more loudly, but with the
same result. Then I lost patience, and let the sash down. As I
did
so, the leather strap broke in my hand, and I observed that the
glass was covered with a thick coat of mildew, the accumulation,
apparently, of years. My attention being thus drawn to the
condition
of the coach, I examined it more narrowly, and saw by the
uncertain light of the outer lamps that it was in the last stage
of
dilapidation. Every part of it was not only out of repair, but in
a condition of decay. The sashes splintered at a touch. The
leather
fittings were crusted over with mould, and literally rotting from
the woodwork. The floor was almost breaking away beneath my
feet. The whole machine, in short, was foul with damp, and had
evidently been dragged from some outhouse in which it had been
mouldering away for years, to do another day or two of duty on
the road.

I turned to the third passenger, whom I had not yet addressed,
and hazarded one more remark.

"This coach," I said, "is in a deplorable
condition. The regular
mail, I suppose, is under repair?"

He moved his head slowly, and looked me in the face, without
speaking a word. I shall never forget that look while I live. I
turned
cold at heart under it. I turn cold at heart even now when I
recall
it. His eyes glowed with a fiery unnatural lustre. His face was
livid
as the face of a corpse. His bloodless lips were drawn back as if
in
the agony of death, and showed the gleaming teeth between.

The words that I was about to utter died upon my lips, and
a strange horror--a dreadful horror--came upon me. My sight
had by this time become used to the gloom of the coach, and I
could see with tolerable distinctness. I turned to my opposite
neighbour. He, too, was looking at me, with the same startling
pallor in his face, and the same stony glitter in his eyes. I
passed
my hand across my brow. I turned to the passenger on the seat
beside my own, and saw--oh Heaven! how shall I describe what
I saw? I saw that he was no living man--that none of them were
living men, like myself! A pale phosphorescent light--the light
of putrefaction--played upon their awful faces; upon their hair,
dank with the dews of the grave; upon their clothes,
earth-stained
and dropping to pieces; upon their hands, which were as the
hands of corpses long buried. Only their eyes, their terrible
eyes,
were living; and those eyes were all turned menacingly upon me!

A shriek of terror, a wild unintelligible cry for help and mercy;
burst from my lips as I flung myself against the door, and strove
in
vain to open it.

In that single instant, brief and vivid as a landscape beheld in
the flash of summer lightning, I saw the moon shining down
through a rift of stormy cloud--the ghastly sign-post rearing its
warning finger by the wayside--the broken parapet--the plunging
horses--the black gulf below. Then, the coach reeled like a
ship at sea. Then, came a mighty crash--a sense of crushing
pain--and
then, darkness.

It seemed as if years had gone by when I awoke one morning
from a deep sleep, and found my wife watching by my bedside
I will pass over the scene that ensued, and give you, in half a
dozen
words, the tale she told me with tears of thanksgiving. I had
fallen
over a precipice, close against the junction of the old
coach-road
and the new, and had only been saved from certain death by
lighting
upon a deep snowdrift that had accumulated at the foot of the
rock beneath. In this snowdrift I was discovered at daybreak, by
a couple of shepherds, who carried me to the nearest shelter, and
brought a surgeon to my aid. The surgeon found me in a state of
raving delirium, with a broken arm and a compound fracture of
the skull. The letters in my pocket-book showed my name and
address; my wife was summoned to nurse me; and, thanks to
youth and a fine constitution, I came out of danger at last. The
place of my fall, I need scarcely say, was precisely that at
which a
frightful accident had happened to the north mail nine years
before.

I never told my wife the fearful events which I have just related
to you. I told the surgeon who attended me; but he treated the
whole adventure as a mere dream born of the fever in my brain.
We discussed the question over and over again, until we found
that we could discuss it with temper no longer, and then we
dropped it. Others may form what conclusions they please--I
know that twenty years ago I was the fourth inside passenger in
that Phantom Coach.